Catalog
1/2 Real Plata Boliviana
| Issuer | Otero y Cía., Córdoba |
|---|---|
| Year | 1869 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Reference(s) | P#S1996 |
| Obverse description | The note is printed in grey-black ink on plain paper, with the firm name OTERO Y Cía. in large bold letters across the upper centre, flanked on each side by a circular vignette bearing the fractional value 1/2. The central panel carries the text MEDIO REAL within a rectangular frame, with the place of issue Córdoba and manuscript date below. The lower portion contains a handwritten promise-to-pay clause in Spanish, with a serial number in red ink at the lower left. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse of this local fractional note is plain and unprinted, consistent with the simple production standards typical of provincial Argentine commercial notes of the 1860s. |
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| Comments |
Otero y Cía. was a private commercial house in Córdoba, not a bank in any formal sense — this fractional note was issued to address the chronic shortage of small-denomination coin that plagued Argentine interior provinces throughout the 1860s. Provincial governments and merchant firms alike stepped into the vacuum left by an inadequate national coinage supply, and these quasi-private emissions circulated on the strength of the issuer's local commercial reputation alone.
The PS prefix in the Pick catalogue places it firmly in the South American private and merchant issues section — a category that remains poorly documented, and where surviving examples are genuinely rare.